Mr. Laurence Gomme, in his _Ethnology in Folklore_, has collected many modern instances of the sacrifices of cattle not only in Ireland and Scotland, but also in Wales, Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man.[577] “Within twenty miles of the metropolis of Scotland a relative of Professor Simpson offered up a live cow as a sacrifice to the spirit of the murrain.”[578] In Wales, when cattle-sickness broke out, a bullock was immolated by being thrown down from the top of a high rock. Generally, however, the wretched victims were burned alive. In 1859 an Isle of Man farmer offered a heifer as a burnt offering near Tynwald Hill, to avert the anger of the ghostly occupant of a barrow which had been desecrated by opening. Sometimes, even, these burnt oblations were offered to an alleged Christian saint. The registers of the Presbytery of Dingwall for the years 1656 and 1678 contain records of the sacrifices of cattle upon the site of an ancient temple in honour of a being whom some called “St. Mourie”, and others, perhaps knowing his doubtful character, “ane god Mourie”.[579] At Kirkcudbright, it was St. Cuthbert, and at Clynnog, in Wales, it was St. Beuno, who was thought to delight in the blood of bulls.[580] Such sacrifices of cattle appear mainly to have been offered to stay plague among cattle. Man for man and beast for beast, was, perhaps, the old rule. But among all nations, human sacrifices have been gradually commuted for those of animals. The family of the O’Herlebys in Ballyvorney, County Cork, used in olden days to keep an idol, “an image of wood about two feet high, carved and painted like a woman”.[581] She was the goddess of smallpox, and to her a sheep was immolated on behalf of anyone seized with that disease. The third form of Celtic pagan survival is found in numerous instances of the adoration of water, trees, stones, and animals. Like the other “Aryan” nations, the Celts worshipped their rivers. The Dee received divine honours as a war-goddess with the title of Aerfon, while the Ribble, under its name of Belisama, was identified by the Romans with Minerva.[582] Myths were told of them, as of the sacred streams of Greece. The Dee gave oracles as to the results of the perpetual wars between the Welsh and the English; as its stream encroached either upon the Welsh or the English side, so one nation or the other would be victorious.[583] The Tweed, like many of the Greek rivers, was credited with human descendants.[584] That the rivers of Great Britain received human sacrifices is clear from the folklore concerning many of them. Deprived of their expected offerings, they are believed to snatch by stealth the human lives for which they crave. “River of Dart, River of Dart, every year thou claimest a heart,” runs the Devonshire folk-song. The Spey, too, requires a life yearly,[585] but the Spirit of the Ribble is satisfied with one victim at the end of every seven years.[586]